A Hurricane of a Different Type

Rum with a tropical swirl

Tim McNally

SARA ESSEX BRADLEY PHOTOGRAPHS

Not so long ago, summer was noted as a “low season” around here. The hotels were empty; restaurants downsized staff and menus; and other employers encouraged their employees to take off “all the time you need.”

That was then; now it’s different. The summer season, notably July, is wall-to-wall with events that fill rooms and puts patrons into seats in restaurants. July begins with Essence Festival, which spills from the Convention Center to Mercedes-Benz Superdome and all points in between. Dining experiences have to be scheduled in between seminars and performances.

That is followed, also this month, by Tales of the Cocktail, a New Orleans-born-and-bred celebration of adult beverage concoctions, attended by celebrities and bartenders (often the same thing), spirit company professionals and regular folks interested in the latest little-known ingredient or new recipe to wow their friends. They all come from around the world to be here in July.

That, too, is different from the not-so-distant past.

The featured drink at Tales this year is the Hurricane Caesar, a play on the original Hurricane recipe, which bears little or no resemblance to drinks of the same name dispensed along Bourbon and St. Peter streets. In a spirited competition, Joe Cammarata from Backbar in Somerville, Massachusetts, bested almost 250 other entrants with his original creation: